


I Just Wanted a Bit of Peace

by kyrrhe



Series: The Synthetic Hybrid [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Conditioning, Confused Bucky, Gen, Guide T'Challa, Guide Tony, Interrogation, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, One Shot, Overprotective Steve Rogers, Protective Natasha Romanov, Sentinel Steve, Series, blatant fix it, there may be pairings in the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 02:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrrhe/pseuds/kyrrhe
Summary: Hydra wanted their asset to be the best weapon possible: super-soldier strength and endurance, sentinel senses, guide empathy, top combat training, excellent equipment. So when they found one of their lost WWII experiments, wounded and left for dead, sentinel senses already online, they simply added from there.--The UN assembly for the signing of the Accords has been bombed, King T'Chaka is dead, and everyone is positive the Winter Soldier is behind it all. But when they track him down to Bucharest and bring him in for questioning, along with the Captain America and friends who aided him, they discover several things they did not expect.On the Soldier's part, he's still upset about being captured, but he'll take what training he can get and if some stressed guides want to help him rein in the rampaging empathy, he might as well stick around.





	I Just Wanted a Bit of Peace

Ioan wasn’t sure about today. The first day in Bucharest was always tricky, even when he was on Blackout. The sudden influx of so many people’s emotions after weeks spent in tiny villages, not to mention all the chemicals and noise and constant vibrations of traffic, made maintaining any sense of control tricky. It didn’t help that he’d taken his last tablet this morning and couldn’t meet with any of the dealers until the next day. 

As he went about restocking his food stores, he had a brief, morbid wish for the conditioning to take over. All total obedience and potential for violence and discovery aside, the Asset didn’t have emotions and wouldn’t have a problem with unruly, half-controlled empathy running amok. The Asset also had iron clad control. While Ioan was much better at not zoning now, after Granny Maria in Hagota had had him practice with grains of salt—he liked that old woman, she was the kind of grandmother that would whack you with a rolling pin if you misbehaved; she reminded him of someone whose name and face were still buried—he was still prone to it when tired or stressed or hungry or sleep-deprived or frustrated or whenever really.

The Asset also had no notion of morals and would obey any who spoke the keys without question or hesitation. 

He needed to look away from the plums before he started counting the colors on their skins. He quickly cased the street instead, and noticed the news vender staring at him. Ioan thanked the old lady at the grocery stand, glanced back at the man. He was still staring. An alarm went off at the back of his mind. People didn’t stare at random strangers unless they were either drugged, zoned, or thought they looked familiar. The man’s eyes were focused within a normal range for a human. Not zoned. Sliding his teeth against each other—he found with the salt that the pressure and noise stimuli combined was a good anchor to avoid zoning—he took a whiff and separated the man’s scent out from the smog and groceries and waste. Not drugged. And now the man was running. Definitely thought he was someone he knew. Ioan glanced at the newspaper on the counter.

 _Shit._

Looked like today was going to be one of the bad ones. 

 

~*~

 

He took the back way into the apartment building, just in case, but three floors down he noticed someone was in his room. His empathy, which had been acting up since the news vender, took that moment to flare and his mind was briefly flooded with worry, concern, sorrow. Probably not a cop. Maybe. Cautiously, he crept up, as quiet as only a sentinel could be. Smell of metal and leather, squeaking creak of Kevlar and other synthetic materials rubbing against each other, an odd echo after each sound that sounded familiar—sense memory burst up and he remembered the man on the bridge. The one he’d been ordered to kill. The one he’d pulled from the river. The one in the museum. The one who hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Probably safe to approach then. 

The man sensed him nearly as soon as he settled in the room. The museum had said he was a sentinel. The man’s heart sped up, though his breathing stayed level. “Do you know me?”

The strange uniform, the echoing shield, the scent of the man’s skin pushed other sense memories to the fore, but they were a confusing jumble and they hurt a bit and he didn’t have the time, so Ioan ignored them. “You’re Steve. I read about you in the museum.”

“I know you’re nervous,” the man said, putting the notebook down on the table. Ioan regretted having left that out. It was the most current one, and he’d been carrying it around. The smell of pasta from the floor below had triggered a memory and he’d rushed to record it before heading out to restock, figuring he’d be back within the hour. Now he wouldn’t have a chance to take it with him. “And you have plenty of reason to be,” the man continued, making Ioan wonder about the man’s intentions, “but you’re lying.”

Ioan knew for a fact that his heart rate had not changed, so while one part of his brain was curious why the man was insisting on it, the rest of him ignored it as irrelevant to the mission. “I wasn’t in Vienna,” he informed the man, as there was no other reason why he was there. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“They’re entering the building,” a voice said over the com in the man’s ear just as Ioan picked up the sound of doors opening and feet on the stairs, smell of gun oil, fast heart rates. 

The man stepped closer. “Well the people who think you did are coming now, and they’re not planning on taking you alive.”

“That’s smart,” Ioan said, taking a step back, half his attention on pinpointing the exact location of the men gathering about his door. “Good strategy.” There were footsteps above now. 

“They’re on the roof, I’m compromised,” the voice said. 

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck,” the man said. 

And there was that name again. Variant of the one he had called him before. The one from the museum. The one that occasionally floated through his dreams and fragments but wasn’t sure if it belonged to him or just someone he once knew. 

They were outside the door, quieting down for the push. 

“It always ends in a fight,” he said. Any time anyone figured out who he was, it always came to a fight. Fight to get out. Fight to get away. Fight to remember. Fight to control. 

“Five seconds,” the tiny voice said. It was very useful. Ioan pulled the glove from his hand and wished he hadn’t run out of tablets.

“You pulled me from the river,” the man insisted. “Why?”

“I dunno.” 

“Yes you do.” 

Grenades fell through the windows. The man was remarkably willing to aid. Ioan blocked the front door by embedding the table in the surrounding wall, then took out the men rappelling through the windows.

“Buck, stop! You’re going to kill someone!” 

Ioan threw the man to the floor and slammed his fist into the wood and retrieved the backpack. “I’m not going to kill anyone.” Even if didn’t make him uncomfortable now, dead bodies lead to questions. Questions made things more difficult than they needed to be. 

He threw the backpack to the next building and then worked his way down to the correct balcony. The man was once again surprisingly willing to aid. Ioan leapt to the next building, grabbed the backpack and took off, but a silent shadow intercepted him, the only warning being the rush of displaced air. The suited unknown regained his footing and took a ready stance, claws extending that echoed like the man’s shield. Hostile. Hostile was between him and the escape route. Ioan engaged. 

Hostile was good. Same caliber as the man, though the vibranium claws made close engagement a new challenge. There weren’t many weaknesses he could exploit, no old or healing injuries. He took a chance and reached out with empathy but found walls as solid as the man’s shield. The brief touch seemed to enrage the hostile and the claws went straight for his face. 

The helicopter was a good distraction.

Ioan ran for the underground highway, hoping to get some cover with it, keeping watch with both hearing and empathy for the attacker. He heard nothing under the blaring horns and distorting echoes, but his empathy picked up the bubble of silence. It also picked up the frustrated anger and worry of the man from the bridge. 

Ioan ran over a car that was driving too slowly. Behind, a police vehicle was gaining ground. The hostile jumped on it. More sirens were entering the highway from both ends, and Ioan dashed over some barrels onto an exit. This took him back above ground. However he acquired a motorcycle so it was an acceptable risk. The hostile got too close and jumped for him; Ioan caught him by the throat. The hostile pushed off the wall of the highway and nearly succeeding in crashing the bike, but Ioan caught himself with the metal hand and kicked the hostile away. The hostile had shown himself not only tenacious but powerful, so Ioan really wanted to leave him behind. He rigged the ceiling to blow. Unfortunately, the hostile made it through and slashed the tires of the bike, sending them both to the ground. The man came crashing through behind them and tackled the hostile away. Lying on the street, Ioan could feel the fleet of police and armored cars arriving from all sides. And with them came a near over-whelming wave of flashing lights, shouts, anger, confusion, disappointment. Empathy flared and wouldn’t die down. Hearing spiked and then abruptly cut out. Vision tunneled.

Yup. Definitely one of the bad ones. 

 

~*~

 

Ioan found the glass holding car a relief. It wasn’t sound-proof, but the outside world was muffled quite a bit, and the vents cut down on scents. About the only thing that was difficult to deal with was the lights made the glass semi-reflective, which could get confusing if he stared at it too long, but it also meant that some of the outside light was rendered ignorable, so in the end he was marking it a plus. All in all, it was helping tremendously as his senses had yet to recover and the decrease in stimuli meant he could afford to spend more energy and concentration keeping the empathy locked down and dials in place. 

The cell they put the holding car in helped a lot, as that cut outside noises by nearly three quarters—he could still hear the really loud noises, and whenever hearing decided to spike, he got snippets of conversations—and stopped the changing scenery. He was just starting to get his empathy to finally begin to settle down when a new man entered the cell, placing a bag on the table. 

“Hello, Mr. Barnes,” he said. “I’ve been sent by the United Nations to evaluate you. Do you mind if I sit?” Ioan said nothing. The man could do what he liked; he wasn’t going to leave until he did. The man tapped on a tablet, set it on a stand, and positioned a notepad beside it. “Your first name is James?”

James...

“I’m not here to judge you. I just want to ask you a few questions. Do you know where you are, James?”

James….something was twitching in the depths of his mind, the areas he couldn’t reach, the places he couldn’t go. James. He tasted the name on his tongue. He knew he looked like the James Buchanan Barnes from the museum, but he had no memories of that man and no proof that Hydra hadn’t given him the face of a dead man on purpose. Besides, while James sounded like maybe, perhaps, it belonged to someone he knew, it didn’t sound right for him. 

“I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me. James.”

No, James wasn’t right. “My name’s Bucky,” he realized. 

The man made a note. “Tell me, Bucky, you’ve seen a great deal, haven’t you?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he rasped, most of his mind still marveling at having finally, _finally_ remembered his name. And he really didn’t want to talk about it. Ever. 

“You feel that,” the man guessed, “if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop. Don’t worry,” the man said, reaching for his tablet. “We only have to talk about one.” The power cut out and red auxiliary lights flashed on. He could hear people shouting orders beyond the door. Ioan/Bucky’s heart started to race and his concentration slipped. His empathy flared, focusing on the only other person in the room. What he felt—and what he saw the man pull out of the bag—made his heart jack hammer in his chest and all his dials jerk. 

_“Steve!”_ he yelled as loud as he could—though he himself heard absolutely nothing as he was jamming his hands over his ears and dialing hearing down as far as it would go. _“I know you can hear me!”_

 

~*~

 

Tony was in the middle of asking FRIDAY for the source of the outage when he was hit by the most intense wave of fear and distress and pure _panic_ he had ever experienced. It knocked the breath out of his chest, made the blood freeze in his veins, and he could have sworn his heart actually skipped a beat before jumping to double time. He didn’t even think. He just ran, tearing through the halls toward the maelstrom of emotion, only the vaguest of senses of other guides and sentinels pouring after him.

The guards at the door stared and fell back on protocol, but Tony just reached out and sent them to sleep without a second thought. He needed to get to the person behind that door. Carter ran to their station and typed in her override. The doors swished open and Tony was hit by a wall of sound. In the back of his mind, a small parcel of consciousness not overwhelmed by instinct winced for the building’s sentinels. The person inside was screaming incoherently at the top his lungs.

Holy shit, it was Barnes. 

Tony and the other guides, T’Challa and Carter among them, converged on the holding car while Steve ran for the psychiatrist shouting desperately in Russian and knocked him flat into the wall. 

Barnes didn’t notice any of them. His eyes were squeezed shut and his body bent over his knees, hands pushed against his ears so hard his fingertips were white, the broken restraints dangling off the arms of the chair, pieces scattered about the car’s floor. 

Tony threw up the strongest external shield he had, feeling a few of the stronger guides throwing up their own to augment it, and tried to push Barnes’ projecting emotions under it. 

They were _strong._

Panic always was. 

He pushed harder, using every trick he knew. Sweat started to coat his forehead. Between the twenty or so guides who could fit in the room, they managed to push Barnes’ roaring emotions under the shield, but it buckled ominously. Then T’Challa finally decided to join the party and an elastic shield wove up around theirs, completely containing Barnes. All of Tony’s breath rushed out in relief as the battering of emotions ceased, feeling almost like whiplash, and he gave the new King a speculative up-and-down. Definitely was not expecting that. A few weaker guides collapsed against a wall, panting. The three other sentinels went around providing stable anchors to equilibrate from. 

Barnes had stopped screaming, thank the lords of Linux, but that was the only reaction he had. His eyes stayed shut and his hands stayed pressed against his ears. 

Rogers hammered on the glass. “Buck! _Bucky!”_

There was no response. 

Tony frowned. The rigidity of Barnes’ muscles looked familiar…wait. 

“Is he _zoned?”_ a guide asked, shocked. 

“I do believe he is,” T’Challa said after a moment. At this point, Rogers was full out whaling on the glass. There was a tiny crack. Literally the size of a gnat. Tony sighed and flicked his watch gauntlet over his fingers. 

“Steve. _Steve!_ Move the fuck over.” Rogers glanced back, saw Tony raise his hand, and quickly ducked out of the way. Tony blasted the glass. It fought for a moment, valiantly attempting to stay in one piece, but inevitably shattered. Rogers rushed into the holding car and gently circled Barnes’ wrists, attempting to pull them away. The flesh arm moved. The other one did not. 

Barnes started at the touch and reared back, punching his metal arm forward so fast it was nearly a blur. Even being a sentinel, Rogers just barely dodged it. Barnes blinked, and his eyes finally focused. He swept them frantically over Rogers, T’Challa, Tony, Sharon, the other guides and sentinels, then jumped up and scanned the rest of the room. The agents in the room pulled their guns but kept them in a ready position. The sentinels immediately went on guard around the exhausted guides. 

“Buck?” Rogers asked.

Barnes spotted the psychiatrist in the corner and darted to him, flipped the man over with no concern whatsoever for where he landed—against the opposite all, as it happened—and snatched up the red book that was lying underneath him. He leafed through it quickly, barely scanning the tops of each page before turning, until he found whatever one he was looking for and closed his eyes, looking away hastily. By touch, Barnes ripped that page from the book and folded it carefully several times. He stared down at it, looking conflicted and lost, though Tony couldn’t pick up a thing through His Royal Catness’ shield. Now that was a trick he needed to learn. Why had he never thought to make shields elastic? He was a genius, for physics’ sake. 

“What the bloody hell is going on?” Ross demanded from the doorway. He was flanked by an entire strike squad. 

Barnes tossed the book in his direction. One of the strike squad caught it by reflex. “That’s Hydra’s,” he said. “For the Winter Solider program.”’

Ross took the book from the squad member and examined it. “And why may I ask do you have it?”

“Because he had it,” Barnes hissed, actually spitting at the prone psychiatrist. He pivoted on his heel in agitation and when he settled again the folded page was gone. “Did you cause the power outage?”

“No. I’m still waiting for my explanation.”

“The Soldier had a major empathic event,” T’Challa said, his eyes having never once left Barnes.

“Which, by the way,” Tony interjected, “what the _fuck?_ Bucky Barnes was a sentinel. How the fuck does he have empathy?”

“Obviously it was something they did,” Rogers said, sidling in what he must have thought was subtlety between Barnes and the rest of the room. “I’m sure that book could tell you.”

“And it will be going straight to the analysts,” Ross agreed, “but we were in the middle of an interrogation and there was a reason for it and it will continue. Someone find a new chair and get Barnes strapped to it.”

“If he had wanted to do something, he would have already done it,” Rogers argued. His hands dropped to his sides.

“This is standard procedure here, Rogers,” Tony shot back. “You didn’t have any concerns about Loki being locked up on that helicarrier. He never tried to do anything either, and you bet your spangled ass he could have.”

“Bucky is not Loki,” Rogers gritted, a hint of sentinel growl creeping into his voice. 

“It’s fine,” Barnes said before Tony could respond. “So long as there are no more sleeper agents—” and the bleak darkness in Barnes’ eyes showed just what he was willing and capable of doing should that be the case, Tony didn’t empathy to catch that drift “—I’ll cooperate.”

“Good.” Ross looked at the strike squad and jerked his head at Barnes. “Watch him. The rest of you, back to your stations!” 

The strike squad fanned out about the room, weapons trained unerringly on Barnes, as the other guides and sentinels left. The only ones who remained were Rogers, because he refused to leave Barnes and would probably be an incorrigible ass about it now, T’Challa because he was still keeping Barnes’ empathy contained, Tony because he wasn’t about to let Rogers out of his sight when he was so compromised, and Carter, for reasons Tony didn’t understand but whatever. 

Barnes didn’t twitch a muscle. Didn’t even look at them really.

“You have no discipline,” T’Challa said coldly after a long moment. 

“Provide some Blackout and I’ll be fine.”'

T’Challa disapproving frown deepened. “Drugs are the response of those who refuse to work. Do you even know how to shield?”

“No.”

Tony blinked. “You’re shitting me. You’ve been off grid for two years. If that’s true we should have found you within three months drooling brain dead in a gutter. How are you not insane?”

“Drugs,” Barnes repeated. “Avoiding crowds. It’s easier in the country.”

“No shit. Please tell me you know what a dial is.”

“Bucky was a sentinel during the war,” Rogers defended. “The techniques were less refined then, but he handled his senses just fine.”

“I don’t remember,” Barnes said. “If it’s true.”

“But you remembered your name! I heard you. You even remembered mine.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows your name, Rogers.”

“I have remembered my name, but everything else is in pieces.” Barnes looked at Rogers. “I hope,” he said, his voice breaking into strange emotion for the first time since Tony had seen him, “that I am not your friend.”

Rogers looked crushed. Tony reinforced his shields. Why did Rogers’ emotions have to be so damn insidious? It was like they were out to get him or something. For the one thousandth and seventy-fourth time—not that Tony was keeping track, he didn’t care—Tony had to wonder if the man out of time even knew that his inner sentinel considered Tony a good match. He wanted to see the look on his face when he did. 

“Why would you say that?” Rogers asked.

“I tried very hard to kill you.”

“As fascinating as this is,” T’Challa cut in with the precision of a scalpel, “I cannot contain him forever."

Carter took a step forward. “I can talk him through creating a beginning shield. Most SHIELD agents were taught how in case someone came online in the field.”

T’Challa waved her forward. Carter walked up to the perimeter the strike squad had marked out and sat cross-legged on the floor. “Sit, it will be easier if you are physically comfortable.”

Barnes considered her for several moments before settling, hesitantly copying her posture. The squad’s guns followed his movement.

“Okay, Bucky, I want you to follow my breaths for the moment, just focus on that.”

“I know how to meditate.” Barnes closed his eyes and within moments his breathing was slow and relaxed, the skin around his eyes soft and unwrinkled. Tony was impressed. It took him a good ten minutes to get anywhere near that and he’d been practicing since he was ten.

“Okay,” Carter said again. “I want you to think of your empathy as a sense that’s been overextended. Can you see a dial for it?”

They waited. Eventually Barnes nodded.

“Good. What number is it at?”

“…ten.”

“I want you lower it by one notch. Take all the time you need.”

Tony collapsed the gauntlet back into the watch. It took twenty minutes. He knew Barnes’ empathy was strong but damn. That was insane. Controlling that must be like riding a rampaging elephant. 

“Did you lower it?” Barnes nodded. “Good. Go one more. Keep going one by one until it’s set at two.”

Three minutes later Barnes’ breathing became a touch labored. Ten minutes after that, the metal hand started flexing on his knee, making all the squad members twitch. After another ten, T’Challa growled, “It is not a battle. You are not conquering it, you are taming it.”

Barnes quirked his head to the side a bit. Slowly, the furrow in his brow smoothed out and after a while his breathing returned to normal. 

“What number is your dial at?” Carter asked.

“Two.”

“Great! Now let’s work on building a shield so King T’Challa doesn’t have to. Can you feel his shield?”

Barnes frowned. “It’s weird.”

“That’s because it comes from outside you,” Carter replied. “Try tracing your way around it. It should outline where your own shield needs to be.”

T’Challa’s expression turned downright thunderous before he schooled it to perfect blandness. Tony grimaced. Yeah, he’d never liked having someone’s mental hands all over him either. It felt grimy, particularly if it was another guide. It seemed to function on the same principle as electric charge. Sentinels felt nice, guides felt like he was a cat and some asshole had pushed all his fur the wrong way. 

“Do you have it mapped out?” Carter asked. Barnes nodded, though he looked almost befuddled. “Shields are highly nuanced, so we are going to go for the most basic. It’s your primary defense against others’ emotions. You can build or visualize it in any manner you like, but it needs to be something you feel is secure and under your control, following the map of King T’Challa’s.”

Twelve minutes later, T’Challa removed his shield without warning, making Tony near-panic for half a second before calming. He could now sense Barnes’ emotional presence, yes, but it was muted, contained within its own walls so that all he got was that yes, Barnes was in proximity and yes, his skills were lacking. It became a bit more present as Barnes slipped a bit with the sudden change in stimuli, but only for a moment. 

“That feels solid,” Carter commented after she got over her own surprise. “It should hold for the moment. What did you use to build it?”

“Laser lattice,” Barnes said. He opened his eyes. “My empathy does not like it.”

“It’s a muscle,” Carter said, standing. “It will become accustomed to it in time.”

A second strike squad entered as Barnes regained his feet, dragging a new chair behind them. They placed it beside the wrecked one and bolted it to the floor. Tony winced at the slipshod job. It would hold, but boy was it sloppy. Barnes sat down in it without a word and let them strap his arms down tightly. They even secured his ankles. 

Carter left to return to the control room, and Natasha stepped in. “I’ve been designated the new interrogator, as it should be fairly obvious that I’m not a Hydra sleeper agent.”

Barnes scrutinized her carefully before saying just as carefully, “You were in Washington. With him.”

“Yes. Am I satisfactory?”

Barnes nodded. 

“Good. One strike squad will be staying inside the room, the other will be outside watching the door. The rest of you are welcome to stay so long as you remember that I am running this show. Capisce?”

“Did you honestly just say capisce?” Tony asked. 

Natasha gave him a hard stare that she must have learned from Pepper at some point. “I already have one idiot making this harder than it needs to be, do not make it two.” Tony held up his hands. Natasha nodded and turned back to Barnes. 

The room was silent waiting for the spyssassin to say something. She crossed her arms. “I’ve skimmed the book.”

Barnes tensed. 

“Quite a catalogue of missions they’ve used you for. I already knew you had over 25 credited kills but still, very impressive.”

Barnes stared unflinching at Natasha, but his shoulders were hard as rocks.

“Tell me, did you ever use your empathy to manipulate your targets?”

“Nat!”

“It’s a legitimate security risk, Rogers. And may I remind you that your presence in this room is a privilege, not a right, and it can and will be revoked if you cannot behave yourself.” Rogers subsided into mulish silence. Tony could feel his own neck muscles straining with the tension. God how he wanted to punch the man. “So,” Natasha continued, turning back to Barnes, “did you?”

“I have few complete memories. It’s possible.”

T’Challa was the one to stiffen this time, his expression saying just how repulsive he found that notion.

“I bet you would’ve used it to get close to them. It’s what I would have done. Make them believe I was their friend, their lover, there to help them. Tell me, Barnes, are you doing the same to us? Lulling us into a false sense of security?”

Barnes’ jaw worked. “No. I’m not. I don’t have the resources to do so.”

“How do I know you’re not lying to me right now?”

Barnes stared at her in silence for several long minutes. Natasha held it. Barnes’ eyes narrowed a fraction, then suddenly he chuckled. A sad little broken thing, almost shocked. “I see what you’re doing, Natalia.”

Natasha’s face stayed as bland as a pancake. “I wasn’t sure you remembered.”

“I didn’t. But I remember bits about a little girl. Training. Punishment. The uproar when you defected.”

“So you understand the need for it then.”

Barnes looked away. “I don’t want to,” he whispered. 

Natasha said nothing to that. After a moment, Barnes sighed and looked back at her. “You have to be the one to do it. I don’t trust anyone else.”

Rogers took a step forward. “Buck—”

“I don’t _know you,_ Captain,” Barnes said, gritting his teeth. “I’ll mark you as neutral in a fight, but I’m not trusting you with this.” He looked at Natasha. “Can you promise me that the cameras won’t record it?”

“I can whisper it. Only the sentinels in this room would pick it up.”

Barnes flicked his eyes to the strike squad. 

Natasha caught the eyes of two of the squad and jerked her head to the door. The members thought about it very hard, but eventually shuffled out the door. 

Barnes still looked deeply uncomfortable. “You will knock me out immediately once you’re done.”

“What the hell is going on?” Rogers demanded. The growl was back and in full force. One very enterprising strike squad member shifted his gun slightly in his direction. Tony approved. Even if the gun only did have sentinel-grade tranqs in it. 

“This is necessary, Rogers,” Natasha said, looking him square in the eye and pinning him there. “If you interfere with this, you’ll not just be interfering with the law, you’ll be interfering with your friend’s chances. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” 

Rogers wasn’t even discrete when he sniffed, but between scent and hearing he must have found something reassuring, because he did actually back down, though his arms where crossed so tightly the muscles bulged. Tony, having been burned too many times to count by now, was not so trusting and ran his scan of Natasha a little deeper than he normally would. If it was something Barnes didn’t want to do, it was likely his new shielding abilities wouldn’t hold through the emotional stress and he did _not_ want to get caught up in that again, especially not at close range. Natasha though was calm, assured. There was a streak of worry running underneath everything but no more than had been running there for the last week, and strangely no more than whenever Clint went off on his own. That was interesting information. 

Natasha nodded at Barnes. Barnes exhaled and fisted the metal hand, flexing the arm. The remaining strike squad members tensed, guns trained on his every twitch. Barnes ignored them. A couple of the metal strips on the bicep shifted and the folded page slide out. Natasha stepped up slowly and took it. 

“Ready?”

A wave swept across Barnes’ shield but it held. Barnes took a shaky breath and visibly steeled himself, hands clenching on the chair’s armrests. Natasha stepped closer to the chair and settled more fully on the balls of her feet, like she was gearing up for a fight. Opening the page, she began to read, lips hardly moving at all and with no sound that Tony could detect. Obviously Barnes could, as after a few seconds he started jerking, breaths coming hard and deep, head falling forward. 

Rogers took one step forward before catching himself, but his emotional landscape was frantic and he was obviously not aware how much he was sharing it. Even even-keel T’Challa was giving the man looks. Tony caught the king’s eye and gave a little eye roll. T’Challa’s lips actually twitched. 

Both guides zeroed in on Barnes as the man screamed. His new shield buckled with an almost felt implosion and then vanished like a popped bubble. Tony braced himself, but there was nothing. No staccato of fear, no flaring of pain, no whining of distress, not even the flat tone of apathy. There was just nothing. Tony couldn’t even feel his emotional presence. It was like the man wasn’t there.

Natasha had apparently finished reading and backed up, tucking the page away somewhere, looking at Barnes expectantly.

Slowly, he raised his head. “Готовы к соблюдению.”

“Until further instruction you will speak only in English,” Natasha ordered. 

“Affirmative.” 

God, his eyes looked like dead things. There was no flicker of anything in their depths. Rogers physically choked. “What did you do? Romanoff, what the hell did you do?”

“I spoke his keys,” Natasha said. “He’ll obey me without question now.”

Rogers rounded on her. _“Why? He didn’t want to!”_

“Because this is necessary. You all need to see what the Soldier truly is, and this way you can be guaranteed that his answers are truth. You can’t even feel him, can you?” she asked, looking at the two guides. 

Tony was still staring at Barnes. “I felt his shield go, and then he just went…poof.”

“All humans have emotions,” T’Challa said. “This is like scanning an automaton.”

Barnes didn’t twitch. He didn’t react to that at all. His lifeless eyes just stared straight ahead. Like he was waiting for someone to flick the on switch or something. 

“I don’t like it,” Rogers growled. 

“There are many things in life we don’t like,” Natasha said. “Doesn’t mean they don’t still have to happen. Don’t worry. I’m only going to ask him questions. Soldier, you will answer all questions asked by anyone in this room truthfully. Did you bomb the United Nations assembly in Vienna on June 23?”

“Negative.”

The strike squad members shifted. Tony could just imagine the chaos taking place up in the control center. 

“Where were you instead?”

“Hagota, Romania. Alias: Ioan Popescu.”

“What were you doing there?”

“Zoning practice.”

“Zoning practice?” Tony repeated. “What the heck does that mean?”

“Mission objective was to count the number of salt grains in a teaspoon, then the number of facets without zoning. Success rate: 63%.”

Tony did his own choking. That was _not_ on the recommended list of activities for unbonded sentinels, no matter what their range was. _Especially_ in a tiny town that probably didn’t have its own SG center. What Barnes was doing was essentially playing with his life. Rogers was shocked speechless.

Natasha looked vaguely curious. “What is your range, Soldier?”

“Standard limit: street signs at 1527 meters, hearbeat at 203 meters, speech at 788 meters, taste 102 parts per million, scent 98 parts per million, surface variations at 51 picometers.”

“Damn, he’s stronger than you, Capsicle.”’

“Bucky was always stronger than me, Tony. That’s why he was the sniper.”

“Funny, I always thought he was the sniper because you just liked being the one to hit people.”

“Stark,” Rogers gritted, “that was _never_ —”

“And anyway,” Tony steamrolled on, “shouldn’t he be an alpha with those ranges?" 

“When he is bonded, perhaps,” T’Challa mused. “How did you become a guide?”

“It was installed with the arm prosthesis.”

 _“What?_ That’s just insane!” Tony shouted. Seriously, but this point he’d thought he wouldn’t be surprised by whatever Hydra had done but that was just so far over the top. “You can’t just install empathy like a software patch! Your body’s not built to maintain it, you need a near entirely different OS! How did that not result in redundant systems and infinite loops? An empathic flare could set off a sensory spike or prolong it or stop a guide from being able to buffer you.”

“Do you have a guide?” Natasha asked.

“Negative.”

“Were you ever assigned a guide?”

“Negative.”

“Do you require a guide to operate at full capacity?”

“Negative.”

“Do you zone?”

“Negative.”

“Sensory spikes?”

“Negative.”

“Empathic flares?”

“Negative.”

Tony couldn’t believe was he was hearing. Natasha just kept going.

“Can you use your empathy to manipulate others’ emotions?”

“Affirmative.”

“Have you?”

“Affirmative. Conditions must be met.”

“What kind of conditions?”

“Target must be a mundane. Guides and sentinels are difficult and impractical to manipulate. Target must not be very skilled in mental disciplines as those allow them to detect the manipulation. Target must be in circumstances where the manipulation will not be later seen as suspicious if the time-frame is long.”

“How many times have you done so?”

“Twice.”

“What is your number of confirmed assassinations?” T’Challa asked suddenly.

“51.”

“And ‘collateral damage’?” T’Challa pressed.

“133 witnesses were removed when ordered. Collateral damage from Washington unknown.” If His Catness was attempting to get an emotional rise out of the Soldier, he was shit out of luck. There wasn’t even a ripple of curiosity. “230 Hydra agents and personnel killed or neutralized at the Maine, United States base.”

“Wait, you attacked a Hydra base?” Tony asked. “Why?”

“I required a jet and the probability of them granting me access was low.”

“Are we done here?” Rogers asked pointedly.

“One last question,” Natasha said. “What set off your empathic event earlier?”

“The psychiatrist was an intruder. He had the book and planned to recite the keys.”

Natasha nodded and flicked her foot out, settling back onto both feet just as suddenly as she left them. Barnes was out cold. “Don’t get your uniform roughed up, Rogers,” she said. “He’ll wake up in five minutes.”

Rogers paced to offset his agitation. It reminded Tony of the tigers at the zoo, like he was built for wider spaces but was trapped in this small, little cell by no fault of his own. Which was frankly ridiculous, the man could leave at any time and he was the whole reason they were even here. 

Five minutes to the second later, Barnes’ emotions flared until they swamped the whole cell. Tony actually staggered under their weight, and then staggered again when they vanished under T’Challa’s buffer. 

Barnes’ chest was heaving. “Thanks,” he gasped out. “t’ll be—a minute…” His eyes stayed closed and Tony could see him clenching his jaw, chin still pressed against his collarbone. 

Rogers rushed to the chair. “Buck, you okay?”

“Back _up,_ Steve!” Barnes gritted

Rogers took two steps back. 

Barnes said nothing for the next thirteen minutes—Tony timed it—then T’Challa’s buffer vanished—once again without warning, leaving Barnes’ new shield exposed, just as patchy as the last one. Shit, did this guy need guide lessons and _fast_. 

Barnes breathed in deeply through his nose and raised his head. He opened his eyes and quickly cased the cell before looking to Rogers with a little frown. 

“Do you remember me?” Rogers asked hopefully.

“…I remember a small kid sick off his ass. He used to put newspapers in his shoes.”

“Bucky, that was me!”

Barnes squinted. “…maybe. There is a resemblance. My memories are patchy.”

“Even after two years?” Tony finally asked, curious despite himself.

“I had other priorities. Did you get what you needed?” Barnes asked Natasha. 

“I don’t know, did you?” Natasha asked the rest of the room. 

Tony sighed and pinched his nose under the glasses. This was going to become a whole other clusterfuck being dumped in his lap. Fantastic. Just want he needed. Well at least Rogers wouldn’t just up and disappear to do something stupid and illegal now. “Well, it’s pretty obvious the guy didn’t bomb the UN, right, Your Catness?”

“…No. He did not.”

“Great. My bet’s on the guy they hauled outta here. Or some accomplice of his. They probably also caused the power outage. Wonderful. A unknown element. Probably going to need to go interrogate _him_ now.”

“A team is already on it,” Natasha informed him. 

“Natalia.”

“I’ll keep it safe, учитель. If I gave it back, they would simply take apart your arm.”

Barnes’ jawbone was stark against the stubble on his face. “And how do I know they won’t do that anyway?”

“Because you’re not a terrorist,” Tony said. “And there’s this little thing called the Geneva Convention.”

“The what?” Rogers asked the same time as Barnes. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Rogers, it’s the thing the Accords are based on! Actually, it’s Conventions and they’re based on a long line of war behavior agreements, ratified by 196 countries. Ring _any_ bells?”

Rogers gave him a withering look. “Kinda had other things on my mind, Tony, like not dying. From one thing or another.”

“Fine. I’ll have FRIDAY make up a packet for you. _Read it._ Now Barnes, as an obviously injured, obviously mentally- and senses-impaired, obviously POW, the most that will happen to you in the immediate future is that you will be detained and examined by an _actual_ medical professional, as you have not actually been convicted of anything yet, and if they attempt to do anything else to you, I’ll want to know why, as the Accords are also supposed to put a stop to all of the old damn SHIELD sneakiness and blatant disregard for human rights and they also no longer exist and the remnants have already agreed to and _have_ signed the Accords.” Tony looked about the quiet room, especially taking in Rogers’ shocked expression, noting that even Natasha had a spit of surprise flickering about her. “What?” he snapped at them. “Did you think I fucking pulled the Accords outta my ass because I just wanted to mess with you? Get over yourself, Rogers! And you, miss spy, you should know by now that that little report you did on me was only accurate pre-Iron Man and by this point has very little relevance to _anything_.” Tony tightened his shields and stormed out. He was just so done. Done with having to fix _everything_ and still watching it all fall apart. Done with having the people who were supposed to be helping him actively not or actively doubting him. Done with having to look at the Golden Sentinel and feel his senses trying to ground on him without the man himself even seeming to notice, like of course, why not, Tony was a guide, guides were there to help sentinels, who cared about what the guide wanted, and he didn’t even _like_ Tony, and the man could just go fuck himself. 

Tony chose to ignore the fact that he knew he’d be right back in the thick of things tomorrow.

 

~*~

 

Bucky leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes in the blissful silence of the cell. It wasn’t total silence. He would never have total silence unless he either zoned on a difference sense or took sound-proofing measures to the extreme, but the faint sounds from the vans in the vents and the scufflings outside the door were easily ignorable and so much better than having to filter out traffic and conversation and sewage and airplanes and the roads creaking under tires. 

It was even better now that people had finally left him alone. The security team had left with Natalia, and she had dragged Steve-not-Steve with her, though he only went willingly when Natalia promised that he could come back later but that at the moment he had things to do. Bucky was grateful. The man’s presence had been making his head hurt. Natalia had done that a little too, but Steve-not-Steve made him feel like his head was being split open. This was better. Natalia had even said that someone would be by with food, after learning that he hadn’t eaten all day. And with Tony Stark’s spiel about those Conventions and Accords, it seemed like he had time before he would be dissected and picked apart—and that it might not even happen at all, a tiny hopeful part of him whispered, the tiny part that he’d stopped listening to long ago—so he had time to figure out his escape plan. 

In the meantime, he had food, restricted stimuli, and he finally had basic training in empathic shielding. On the misery scales, empathic flooding far outweighed having to become the Asset, and Natalia had been true to her word, only questions and a quick reset immediately after. He could live with that. He’d get the page back from her when he broke out. 

Maybe today hadn’t been so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> My birthday gift to me: my first Sentinel fic. It is hands down my favorite trope and I've been wanting to write in it for a while. And this thing was so easy to write! Slipping into flow was as easy as opening the document, unlike some other fic I could name. 
> 
> I am trying a new format, so this will be a series of (hopefully) self-contained shorts instead of a giant multi-chapter fic. Hopefully this will not make me feel so worried about updating. 
> 
> All Russian here was taken from Google translate. Apologies for any inaccuracies. I do have it on good authority that Popescu is a very common Romanian family name; I chose the Romanian variant of John for my own amusement. 
> 
> This is also, as the tags say, a blatant fix it as CW broke my heart. That last fight seen was physically painful. I also have many, many issues with the way communication was handled in that movie and while I understand it makes for good drama, it is not a good role model, particularly on Steve's end. 
> 
> I'm really looking forward to writing this as I get to play with new characters and concepts. Thanks for reading!


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